B/CS Restaurant Bucket List Update

I blogged earlier about how Michael and I came up with a list of restaurants we want to eat at before our time comes to an end in the Bryan/College Station area. You can read about it here.

Today I am going to update you on some of the places we have gone that are on our list.

Our list is as follows:
La Bodega
Martins Bar-B-Q
Los Molcajetes
Maddens
Koppe Bridge
Lakeside Icehouse Grill
Coco Loco
Pho John
40 Tempura
Top Of The Hill 
Cafe Eccel
J Cody's Bar-B-Q
Sodolacks
Christopher's
Good Time Charlie's
Haiku
Hullabaloo's Diner
Carter's Burgers 
We added:
BJ's 
The Village

As I mentioned in my first blog, the list is in no particular order, they are just added as we drive by and think to ourselves we want to eat there soon.

Martin's Bar-B-Q -- Let me just start by saying DELICIOUS! It has been family owned since 1925 and they have been cooking the best bar-b-q around since then! When you walk in you can smell the smoke from the smoker and you can basically taste what you are going to be eating in the air. When we went the first time (it was last week) we went for lunch and I have not been able to stop telling people about it. I will warn you, since it is a family owned restaurant they are a little slow, but it is worth the wait. The second time was this weekend (3 days later haha) and we tried new items on the menu and were even more impressed! Michael had been wanting to go for so long and I finally gave in, thinking to myself, I am not sure if I will even like bar-b-q that much and woah, I have been missing out. You have to go to Martin's Bar-B-Q if you are in Bryan!

Madden's -- Michael actually has not been yet, but I have been about 5 times now so it can no longer be on the bucket list. I work 3 blocks from Madden's so the girls go to lunch there a bunch. The restaurant is located inside a store, Old Bryan Marketplace (if you have never been you need to go, Christmas season is the best time) so if there is a little wait there is plenty to look at to keep you busy. The food is delicious and looks as if it came out of a magazine. Now we just need to get Michael to go!

Koppe Bridge -- Another new favorite! And everyone elses as well. Both times we went the restaurant was crazy busy, but the food did not disappoint. The french fries are delicious and their burgers are a little greasy, just like we like! We have been back twice and the last time we were there Michael had the chicken fried steak and it was very good.

Carter's Burgers -- We went on a Tuesday, which is half price burger night, so before we even ate we were happy. Michael's mom was in town and went with us and we all enjoyed our burgers.

BJ's -- We didn't know a chain restaurant could be this good. We went to BJ's with my mom and dad and could not believe how good it was! We shared all 4 dishes we ordered and had a yummy appetizers along with some of their home brewed beers. We will be going back!

The Village -- I had heard lots of great things about this local place and we finally tried it! We ate here with Michael's brother and sister and enjoyed our dinner while listening to a local artist. There are so many options on the menu so I will have to go back as it is 2 blocks from my work.

More to come soon!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

In an earlier blog about Tasty Thursday I showed a picture of chocolate chip cookie dough brownies. They are really easy to make and delicious!

Ingredients:
For Brownies:
4 ounces unsweetend bakers chocolate
1 cup of butter, room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup of flour

For cookie dough:
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

*For the chocolate drizzle, you will want some extra chocolate chips and shortening


Make the brownies first:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and spray a 9x13 pan.
2. Cut up the bakers chocolate. Put in a microwave safe bowl and cook for 30 seconds at a time, stiring each time. Once smooth put aside to cool.

2. In a different bowl using an electric mixer, mix butter and brown sugar. Beat in the eggs and the vanilla extract. Once combined, mix in the chocolate then the flour.

3. Spread mixture in greased pan and cook 25 to 35 minutes. Let the brownies cool completely.

Now to make the cookie dough:
1. In a bowl, mix butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Then mix in the milk and the vanilla. Once combined add the flour and then mix in the chocolate chips with a spoon.

Making the final product:
1. Once the brownies have cooled completely top with the cookie dough and put in the fridge till dough is firm.

2. For me, I cut mine into serving sizes and used cupcake holders to place them in. I also melted some of the chocolate chips with 1 tbsp shortening and put it in a ziploc bag. I cut the bag corner and drizzled the chocolate over the top of individual servings.

Since there are no eggs in the cookie dough it is fine to eat raw. These things are delicious and addictive!
Enjoy!!

Oreo Crispies!

Thank you Pinterest for another good one!

I was looking for something yummy and that I did not have to actually bake to take to my women's bible study last night and ran across this recipe that I will be making again!

Oreo Crispies is what I am calling them:

It is a very simple recipe! They are made just like rice crispie treats, but instead of using rice crispies, use crushed oreos, genius! I altered the recipe from what I read on the blog, so here is what I did.

Ingredients:
1 bag small marshmallows
4 tbsp butter
1 package of oreos

First, coat an 8x8 pan with butter.
Put package of oreos in a Ziploc bag and using a rolling pin crush the oreos.
On the stove melt the butter and marshmallows, stirring continuously.
Once melted quickly add the crushed oreos to the mixture, mix, and pour into the butter pan.
Let sit about 20 minutes, cut, and serve.

Delicious!

Halloween Puppies!

We came to a decision! If you did not read my earlier blog about what Bella should be for Halloween, click here to catch up. Michael and I could not decide on what she should be, then we heard that PetsMart had their pet costumes 75% off. When we got there we found it, and it was only $4.25 which made it even better!!

Here is Bella on her first Halloween!

 

We decided on the chicken! We thought the orange legs and the beak were perfect! Also how cute is it that there is a part for her ears to stick out! She was a little curious about the legs but gave up on trying to eat them shortly after.

Here are the brownies all dressed up!! Enjoy :]

The only candies they got were doggie treats so they did not push their way out the door to greet all the cute kids!

A Weekend in College Station

I have never blogged about activities that take place on the weekends we stay in town and I think this weekend was one worth sharing about!

On both Saturday and Sunday morning we took the pups to the lake to drain some energy! They loved it and so did we!

Bella and Jake

Samson -- "throw my ball!"

On Saturday Michael's sister Julie got into town and we went right to campus for a breakfast tailgate! We met up with some friends and went to the game. It was very cool in the morning, 34 degrees when we were at the lake, and it was only 2 and a half hours later so we had all dressed warm and stripped off layers and had them under our seats. We basically had a whole wardrobe under us. Sadly out of all of us, I got super burned and now I look ridiculous!

Our group!

Hubby!

Aggie Band -- the best part of the game

After the game we went to Casa Rodriguez for dinner (delicious) and came home and carved pumpkins. Thanks to Pinterest I got a new idea for carving our pumpkins this time!! We used a drill to make the holes which was so easy and super fast! Here they are

On Sunday we went to the Renaissance Festival, it was our first and last time to ever go. We have been told by many people how much they love it, but we did not agree one bit. We knew there would be some people dressed up, but I had no idea that about 50% of the people would be! When we first got there Julie went to meet up with some friends, so Michael and I wandered in and went to the Birds of Prey show, the best thing we did. I learned a few new things, Michael already knew them. Later we ate some yummy food, watched a few more shows, and did so much people watching. There were so many costumes that at first I felt bad taking photos, but then I realized they want their pictures taken. Sadly I missed some of the best ones from the beginning, but I got some others later on during the day. In the end we are glad we went to be able to say we went and experienced it, but do not care to go back. If you have never been it is something to see. We were shocked by how many people get into character and what people chose to wear out in public. Here are just a few pictures from the day.

King Vulture

WHAT in the world!?!??!!

Julie shooting an arrow

His job was to stand there and have tomatoes thrown at him all while he made crude jokes at the people throwing them at him

Good gracious!!

Men dressed up like this EVERYWHERE!

How does this fit in?

All of us at the end of the day! It was so bright, lucky Michael had his sunglasses on

This weekend flew by, but that is how all weekends are. We are so glad we were able to spend time with Julie since she is normally going somewhere fun every weekend!

The Flying Bella

Since we got Bella we knew she had a little jumping bean inside her, we just did not know how to get it out of her. Luckily we figured it out!!

Last weekend we found a new place to walk the dogs at Lake Bryan. Since the water level is so far down there is a part of the lake that is normally underwater and the dogs loved exploring it! We got far back to where the little coves are (which are very deep) and Bella became a new kind of lake dog!

Meet the Bella we have been waiting for, The Flying Bella!

 

We had so much fun watching her literally just fly through the air! She is so springy and we have been waiting for her to finally do this and now we know she does!

Here is a video of her in action!

If you want to have a lake play date, let us know :]

Tasty Thursday!

We started a tradition at work that makes us look forward to Thursday! I blogged earlier about Tasty Thursday and some of the things I have made here and here, and today I am catching up on some of the things I have made lately.

We decided that Tasty Thursday was a little much for every Thursday, so we have changed it to every other Thursday and we have had a great turn out since then! We also changed the idea behind it and Tasty Thursday is now like Iron Chef when you have to use a certain ingredient in order to participate. It is nothing crazy like beets or oysters, but more normal ingredients.

Here are the past three things I have made for Tasty Thursday!

The ingredient was Chocolate so there were so many idea but I wanted to try something new. Thanks to Pinterest I made chocolate chip cookie dough brownies that were DELICIOUS!! I will blog later about how they are made, but I never would have guessed making homemade brownies would be so easy. On top of the brownies was no bake cookie dough (no eggs) with chocolate sauce drizzled on top. Here is the recipe!

 

Two weeks later the ingredient was cinnamon and I made snickerdoodle blondies. They did not turn out like cookies like I thought would, I actually had no idea what to expect, but it turned out like a coffee cake. Click here for the recipe.

On a side note about cinnamon: Earlier in the week I had made snickerdoodles for Michael (his favorite cookie) and it was a recipe for Pinterest, who would have guessed. I had not been happy with the recipe I had been using so I was ready for a new one. My old recipe used shortening and the new one used melted butter and dark brown sugar. The cookies were soft for a week and were so good! I will be making more of these soon! Oh and dark brown sugar is the way to go, from now on its the only kind of brown sugar I am going to use. Here is my new recipe for snickerdoodles.

Today our ingredient was pumpkin (in the spirit of halloween and fall). I have been searching Pinterest for recipes and found one, pumpkin spice doughnut holes. These are baked and not fried, which is GREAT! They were so easy to make and yummy! They did not turn out as circles though, I am not sure how they could have, but as they looked little muffin likes. When I rolled them in the cinnamon sugar they sorta looked like circles. Such an easy recipe you all should try, click here for it.

In two weeks our ingredient will be strawberries!